Running Out of Days
by Killer Angel
Summary: Voldemort is in control, and Hermione must go back and fix everything... HGSB. My shot at a time-turner fic. Pretty dark at beginning, but will get very light and fluffy. PLEASE read and review! Better summary inside.
1. Prologue: The Better Life

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters and anything else you may recognize from the series belongs to J. K. Rowling. The title of this story comes from the 3 doors down song, "Running Out of Days" from the Album "Away From the Sun." The title for this chapter and the lyrics come from the 3 doors down song "The Better Life" from the Album "The Better Life."

Summary: A series of unfortunate events leads to Voldemort taking over the world. Hermione must go back in time to stop this from happening. A small prank causes a little confusion, and she lands twenty years in the past, instead of only two. WARNING: Character death and suicide—begins dark, but will get very light and fluffy.

**A/N: This is my time-turner story. As my favorite ships are HG/SB, HG/RL, and HG/SS… I figure it's practically a requirement.**

**I'm trying to do a different twist, though once she's in the past, it's gonna seem the same as all the others I'm sure.**

**I wanted to do something a little more believable and less cliché than falling down stairs or a potions accident… and this is the result. As a result, the first couple of chapters are quite dark… (which reminds me: WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS CHARACTER DEATH AND SUICIDE) which is kind of weird for me… but I assure you it will get very light and fluffy. I'm all about the fluff, man.**

**Well, here it is. I hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

Running Out of Days: Prologue

.o.

.o.

_I'm about to be_

_on the floor again,_

_Surely you're gonna find me here._

_I'm about to sleep _

_until the end of time,_

_drug I take gonna wake my fear right now._

_I'm passing away on to the better life._

_I'm passing away on to the better._

_- The Better Life -_

.o.

.o.

"You just don't get it Hermione. You can't possibly understand how I'm feeling." Harry Potter ran his fingers though his permanently unkempt hair and sighed, trying not to get angry at his friend. He knew she was only trying to help. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but when he let it out, he suddenly collapsed into sobs. He slid down the stone wall of the corridor they were standing in and held his head in his hands, trying to stop the tears that had begun to stream down his face.

Hermione Granger watched him break down, unsure of what to do. She knew that he needed this; it had been almost a full year and he had yet to properly mourn. So much had gone wrong in such a short amount of time, and for the first time in her life, she was completely stumped. She carefully sat next to the shaking boy and wrapped her arms around him, trying to provide him the comfort he so clearly ached for. She leaned her head gently on his shoulder and whispered to him that they would make everything okay.

When Harry had finally run out of tears, the two of them stood up and silently walked the short distance to their Gryffindor quarters. Hermione led Harry to the big couch in the common room, and they sat down and faced each other. No one else was in the room, so they decided that that was a good enough place to talk.

"I can't do this anymore, 'Mione." Harry looked up at her and she could see his eyes were no longer the sparkling emerald green he was known for, but a dull, hollow green that showed the pain he was feeling. "I've carried on this way for far too long. It's been nearly a year since Sirius died, and I haven't been happy for a single moment since then. I have nothing left to live for. I have nothing to look forward to. Not even the fact that I can leave the Dursely's once we've graduated this year can bring me any joy, because I won't be able to move in with Sirius anymore. Day after day I have to remind myself of the coming battle, that everyone is depending on me to defeat Voldemort; other than that, I've got no reason to get up in the mornings." He looked down at his shoes and tried to figure out how to put what he was thinking and feeling in to words. Unable to come up with the right way to say things, he just took her hand in his and squeezed it gently, willing her to feel what he felt. It was ridiculous of course, and Hermione just looked at him questioningly.

"You're right, Harry. I don't understand. It seems to me that you have lots of things to live for. You may not have your parents or Sirius, but you do still have Ron and me. And the rest of the Weasleys as well. You could have lots to live for if you'd only open up, Harry. Remus was closer to your parents and Sirius then you were, and he's doing okay. If you just let us in, in time, everything will work out just fine… I promise."

"You shouldn't promise something like that Hermione. You'll only feel bad when you realize it's not true."

"But it is true, Harry! We all love you very much, and even if we didn't need you for the final battle, we'd all _still_ love you just as much."

Harry looked at her and shook his head at how naïve she was. Why couldn't she see that the world wasn't always full of rainbows and sunshine? Sometimes, you just had to accept the rain clouds and wait for them to go away… but Harry was tired of waiting. He stood up confidently and pulled Hermione up and into his arms, hugging her as if he'd never see her again. He whispered a soft goodbye into her ear before turning and marching right into his room.

"Good night to you too, Harry." Hermione whispered, wondering what was going on. She'd never been this confused in all her life. Shrugging her shoulders, she followed Harry's example and headed to her own dorm room. After washing up and changing into a comfortable nightgown, she drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

.o.

.o.

The morning sun streamed through her window and woke her from her slumber. Groaning, she buried her face in her pillow and wished for the blinding light to go away. 'We have really got to get some blinds in here,' she thought as she stepped on to the cold floor. Normally, she'd head to the prefect's bathroom first thing to get ready for the day, but she looked at the clock on her bedside table and saw she didn't have time to wash up properly; she'd just have to do that after breakfast. She threw on the first uniform that she found and hurried down to breakfast, knowing that she was late and hoping some of her friends would still be there. She quickly spotted the two red heads belonging to Ron and Ginny Weasley. She scurried over and took the empty seat next to her only female friend.

"Good morning." She chirped, trying to hide her hatred of Monday mornings.

"Hey, 'Mione." Ron responded. "Is Harry on his way down?"

"Oh, I don't know. I assumed he'd already come down. I think we'll have time to go check up on him before class if we finish quickly."

"Do you think he's sick?" Ginny asked, with a worried expression evident on her face. She had gotten over her schoolgirl crush on the boy-who-lived, which had ironically enabled her to grow closer to him and become a much better friend.

"It's possible." Hermione wasn't too worried; Harry wasn't one to get extremely ill. "He was acting pretty weird last night. He kind of freaked me out, actually. I've never seen him so solemn before. I hope he's feeling better today. I miss the old Harry."

Her two pals agreed and they quickly finished their breakfast before heading up to the dormitories.

Hermione stated the password and ushered her friends into the common room. Signaling for them to be quiet, she tip-toed up the stairs to the bedroom Harry shared with Ron and the other boys, and motioned for them to follow. When the room was discovered to be empty, the three of them settled onto Ron's bed, and Hermione began to tell them of the events that took place the night before, so they would know what emotions to possibly expect from Harry. Once they had taken in the information, they all took simultaneous deep breaths and headed towards the bathroom where they expected to find their somber comrade.

Although Harry was also a prefect, he usually used the regular bathrooms so that he didn't have to walk so far just to wash up in the mornings.

Hermione called out to him softly as she knocked tentatively on the door: "Harry… Harry it's us. Are you in there?" When no response came, Ginny tried.

"Harry, please let us in! We were worried when you didn't show up at breakfast. At least let us know you're alright, and then you can wallow all you want." They waited in silence, but there were no sounds to be heard from the other side of the door.

"Maybe he's got a silencing charm up," Ron suggested. Hermione rolled her eyes, but checked anyway, and was not surprised to find that there wasn't one.

"Harry we're going to open this door, so you'd better be decent!"

She counted aloud to three, and then swiftly swung the door fully open.

"He's not here," Ron said with a slight tremor to his voice. All three of them were beginning to get really worried.

"Maybe he's in the Prefect's bathroom" Ginny suggested.

"'Mione would have seen him in there earlier, Gin," Ron reasoned.

"No," Hermione cut in, "I didn't have time to go in there this morning, I rushed right down to breakfast."

They stood in front of the open bathroom door, for a moment, before they simultaneously turned and rushed to the Prefect's bathroom. They passed by a clock and noticed they were really late to class, but they were passed caring. They just wanted to find Harry.

"This is silly," Ginny scolded, as they slowed to a stop in front of the bathroom door. "We're getting so worked up. He's probably just brushing his teeth or something. Let's just go in." She knocked hard on the door three times then pushed on it, not waiting for a response.

Nothing happened. The door wouldn't budge.

"Why won't the door open?" Ginny was clearly panicking.

"Ginny, it's okay." Hermione smiled condescendingly at her. "This is the Prefect's bathroom, you need a password, remember?"

"Oh. Of course. Sorry."

Hermione said the password, and Ginny tried the door again, more slowly this time. She held her breath as she pushed, until it was fully open, and she stepped inside with Ron and Hermione at her heels.

She and Hermione shrieked at the sight that greeted them, and Ron's face grew abnormally pale. Lying before them was Harry Potter's lifeless body, fatally wounded by the sword of Godric Gryffindor.

After a few moments the utter shock wore off and Ginny was the first to move. She collapsed in tears on the hard tile floor, bringing the other two back to reality. Ron noticed a note clutched in Harry's left hand, and he pulled it out of his deceased friends grasp, trying to keep his own tears at bay.

"Hermione, it's addressed to you." He handed her the note and knelt down to hold his baby sister.

Hermione read the note over and over again, before finally braking down into sobs of her own:

_-Hermione-_

_I just couldn't do this anymore. I need a better life..._

_I'm sorry,_

_-Harry-_

.o.

.o.

* * *

A/N: Hope you liked the prologue! Don't forget to review! I need comments, so I can know ways to make this story better! Also, I'll probably update in about a month… but if I get enough reviews (and by "enough" I really mean "a whole lot") I might be encouraged to update sooner…


	2. This Time

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters and anything else you may recognize from the series belongs to J. K. Rowling. The title of this story comes from the 3 doors down song, "Running Out of Days" from the Album "Away From the Sun." The title for this chapter and the lyrics come from the 3 doors down (no they won't all be by 3 doors down) song "This Time" from the Album "Away From the Sun."

Summary: A series of unfortunate events leads to Voldemort taking over the world. Hermione must go back in time to stop this from happening. A small prank causes a little confusion, and she lands twenty years in the past, instead of only two. WARNING: Character death and suicide—begins dark, but will get very light and fluffy.

**A/N: Here's the second chapter. Hope you enjoy!**

**This chapter is much less dark. There's a lot of mention of people who died, and the world is under Voldemort's control… but no one actually _dies_ in this chapter… I promise.**

Running Out of Days: Chapter 1

_Same way you did the last time  
You'll break when you fall  
Don't make the same mistakes you did all over  
You've got to believe in yourself this time_

This Time-

A YEAR LATER---

Hermione looked frantically around her, searching for the source of the noise she'd just heard. She pulled the invisibility cloak that used to belong to Harry tighter around her and crept silently towards the shaking bushes. She stood still and waited for someone to step out of the shrubs. She let out the breath she was holding when she saw it was only a squirrel that was causing the commotion. She sighed and quickened her pace, and soon arrived at the new order headquarters.

"Hello," she whispered as she stepped through the door.

"Hermione!" Arthur Weasley ran to her and pulled her fully into the house. "You took so long! We were afraid they'd gotten you."

Since Harry's suicide, the whole world was nearing an apocalypse. With his one main enemy gone, Voldemort jumped at the chance fate had given him; in less than a year, he and his Death Eaters had full control. Friends, family, and innocent people were dying everywhere. The Order of the Phoenix continued to meet, but they'd had a harder time getting together to work on their plans since many of them were in hiding.

"No, I'm fine." Hermione gave Mr. Weasley a quick hug, as if to assure him that she was there. "I was just held up by a squirrel."

Arthur looked at her oddly, and almost asked for an explanation, but quickly decided he'd rather not know.

"Well, hurry along, dear." He ushered her into the room in which meetings were always held. "We really must get this meeting started."

Hermione took her seat at the table and looked around her at the remaining Order members, but noticing more all the empty chairs. They had lost so many people.

Ron was the first of the people that she was close to to go. He had thrown himself in front of a deadly curse headed towards Albus during a particularly brutal battle about nine months ago. Soon after that, Bill and Charlie Weasley had been stopped on the street by Death Eaters and killed on the spot. Nymphadora Tonks and Minerva McGonagall had gone on a mission nearly half a year ago and never returned. About three months after that, Severus Snape had been discovered as a spy for the light, and was tortured to death by Voldemort himself. The most recent loss was Remus Lupin. He'd been executed barely two weeks ago under a new law passed against all Werewolves, Vampires, and other dark creatures that Voldemort had no control over.

"Hermione," Albus gave her a small smile, though his smiles seemed worthless now as they had not for some time been accompanied by the trademark twinkle in his eyes. "I'm so glad you could make it."

"What is today's meeting about, Albus?" He was no longer her Headmaster, as there was no longer a Hogwarts School.

"After much thought, I believe I may have found a way to bring back the wizarding world that we used to know."

Everyone around the table sat in silence, not daring to believe what they'd just heard. Was he serious? Was it possible that after all they'd been through, an end could be in sight? Finally, someone spoke, bringing everyone back.

"Well, go on then, Albus. Tell us the plan." Draco Malfoy rolled his eyes at the old man's dramatic pause.

Draco had joined the Order at the end of his sixth year, along with Hermione and Ron, becoming a sort of junior spy. Now he was the only spy the Order had, and he had sort taken Snape's place—even as the sardonic git. Unfortunately, he had yet to rise up to a higher position in Voldemort's ranks, so the information he could provide, however helpful it may be, was pretty limited.

"I'm sure you all know what next Thursday is..." Albus looked around to see everybody nod their heads in affirmation.

"It's the one year anniversary of…" Ginny chocked for a moment. "…of Harry's death." Her eyes became cloudy as she spoke the words. It was harder on her than most people realized. Sure, everybody missed him, but Harry and Ginny had been dating for a year and a half before his suicide. Nobody except for Hermione knew though. Harry hadn't wanted to tell anyone, for fear of harming his friendship with Ron.

"Yes, it is." Dumbledore spoke again, with the mischievous twinkle that had been present earlier gone. "But more important to the plan I have formulated—"

"What could be more important than the death of Harry Potter?" Moody cut in.

"Ultimately, Alastor, his death is what is being prevented. We will be going about it, however, by saving another life. Thursday is also the two-year anniversary of the death of Sirius Black." He let this sink in before he continued. "We are all aware of the guilt Harry let sit on his shoulders after Sirius died, and we all know that this was the primary reason for his wish to end his life. If we stop Sirius from dying in the first place, then Harry won't have to either."

"How are we going to do that?"

"We'll go back in time."

"But, Albus," Arthur began, "messing with time is highly illegal!"

"Of course it is. But so is this meeting. We are fugitives of the law. In this world, everything that's good is illegal. This is what must be done. It is the best and only plan that we have."

Everyone sat still for a moment taking everything in, before Hermione pointed out what she thought to be an obvious flaw:

"But time-turners only travel a few hours!" She said in her best know-it-all tone of voice. "How can anyone go back far enough to stop Sirius from dying?"

"My dear, it is true that most time turners can only travel in hours… but I happen to have my own personal collection of time-turners—five in all: one is standard and travels by the hour, one travels by days, one in months, and—the one you will use—which travels in years."

"Sir," Ginny interrupted shyly, "that's only four."

"Yes, well I also have one that travels in decades, but that's irrelevant to this.

"Well, where is this collection?" Moody demanded impatiently.

"Ah," Albus' seemingly permanent smile faltered. "This is the hard part of the mission. The hidden cabinet containing these time-turners is under the desk in my office… at Hogwarts."

"Are you out of your mind?" Moody growled. "We'll never get in there! The chances of making it there alive are slim enough, but to get _back_ would be impossible! That's where they keep their prisoners! They'll notice anything trying to leave."

"That's why no one's going to come back."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Draco never fully trusted everyone in the order, especially Dumbledore.

"Well, we're only going to send one person—the one who will go back in time. They will leave right from my office, with a letter from me to give to myself in the past."

"Who's going to go sir?" Ginny inquired. Draco immediately stood up.

"I'll do it."

"No, my boy. I'm afraid you would not be the best choice for this particular mission." Draco sat down and began to sulk. He hated not being the best for _anything_. "Miss Granger, if you do not object, I think you are most qualified for this."

"Her?" Draco was back on his feet. "With all due respect, sir, this is spy stuff. Granger's the brains—not the brawn."

"Hermione is the best person for this job. I've thought long and hard and my mind his made up." He turned his gaze to the girl in question. "Do you accept, my dear?"

"I do." Hermione consented.

"Wonderful. Here I have the one thing you will need to take with you: This is a list of my time-turners and which colors are which ones. The gold one, as you already know, is for traveling by hours. Green is for days, silver in for months, blue is for years, and purple is for decades." He put the list down on the table and gestured with his hands that they should all follow him. "If we head into the next room, we can go over the plan in more detail."

As they all followed him out of the room, Draco lagged behind. _Why should Granger get to do this? It's too important for someone like her. Don't they see that I'm obviously a better choice? Well, if she were to screw up this mission somehow, I bet they wouldn't be so quick to pick her over me in the future…_

He inched nearer to the list and tapped it twice with his wand. He laughed for a moment, before realizing that they surely would notice that he wasn't in the room with them, so his slipped out quietly and slid onto the couch next to the Ron and Ginny.

.o.

.o.

Hermione took a deep breath as she started down the streets of Hogsmeade, carefully hidden by her cloak. She was having a difficult time walking with the way her cloak was hanging, but it was how they'd insisted she wear it. It had to keep her somewhat hidden so they wouldn't see what she was trying to do—but they had to be able to see some part of her as well. She needed to get caught by just the right person. The ones that would shoot her right away wouldn't be smart enough to figure out who she was. The ones who could figure it out were the smarter ones who would see she was more important than that and should be taken to the prison at Hogwarts.

"Hey you!"

_Ah._ Hermione thought. _Perfect._

Lucius Malfoy came at her quickly and grabbed her by the arm. They didn't come much more clever than him. Hopefully, he wouldn't be _too_ clever.

"Say, what have we here?" He gave a wide grin. "What are you doing in Hogsmeade, Granger? Shouldn't you be hiding from me?" Hermione tried to put on the expression of a terrified little girl. It wasn't as hard as she'd expected. "I'll have to take you in. I've got a feeling the Dark Lord would be quite pleased with your head on a plate. Unfortunately for me, I'm sure he wants to be the one to put it there…"

He pulled her towards Hogwarts and Hermione pretended to struggle and try to get away. He had taken her wand away first, like they had expected, but luckily she was still prepared. After Harry died, Dumbledore had suggested Hermione begin taking lessons in wandless magic. Like everything else she did, she had quite a knack for it and picked it up very quickly.

Once Malfoy had taken her through Hogwarts gates and passed the wards, she whispered a simple incantation to knock him off of his feet. Then she used a much more complex spell and turned herself invisible. Now came the most dangerous part of the mission: she had to get to Dumbledore's office without bumping into any of the many Death Eaters wandering around the grounds. Also, the invisibility spell was incredibly draining on her powers—especially without a wand. She had to get to the office very fast, or she might collapse, or worse, become visible to the enemy.

.o.

.o.

After a few close encounters and too many narrow escapes, Hermione finally made it to Dumbledore's office. She whispered the secret password that he gave her—the permanent one that only Headmaster's knew which had been the backup password since Hogwarts was originally founded. She held her breath as the gargoyle moved aside, hoping that no one would come to investigate the noise it was creating.

As soon as she stepped into the stairway and the passage shut behind her, she removed her invisibility spell and paused for a moment to regain her strength. She crept cautiously into the room, which still looked the same as the day it was first ransacked.

She went immediately to the desk and searched under it for the secret cabinet. It took her a moment to find it, but when she finally did she opened it and pulled out the list of time-turners from her pocket.

"Years… years… years…" she mumbled to herself as she scanned down the sheet with her finger. _Ah, here it is. Purple… That's funny; I could've sworn Dumbledore said that the years one was blue. The stress of this mission must be getting to me._

She pulled out the purple time-turner and shut the cabinet. Slipping the long purple chain around her neck, she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm her nerves. It didn't work, and she was suddenly more nervous than ever.

Glancing out the window, she saw a large boulder by the lake, which used to be her favorite place to sit and think. There wasn't anyone around it, and thought she new it was a risk she wouldn't be taking, she thought she might feel better about this down there.

She turned herself invisible once more and held the hourglass tight against her chest as she slipped out of the office and ran swiftly to the giant rock awaiting her. Once she arrived, this time without any close calls, she sat down and took her deep, calming breaths once more. This time she felt much better, and she lifted the device, turned it over two times, and waited for the pull of time.

Suddenly, she felt like she was flying backwards really fast and the colors around her blurred together and rushed past her. She tried to prepare herself for the sudden stop that she never seemed to get used to, but it didn't come. At first, she thought she miscalculated how long it would take—but when time kept on flying around her, she knew there was a problem. Just as she began to panic, the jolt of time stopping finally came and threw her unsuspecting body off balance.

Instead of landing on the hard rock, like she expected, she fell on something a little softer. She looked up and realized she had plopped right into somebody's lap.

.o.

.o.

**A/N: Wow, I know this took me forever to put up, and I'm really sorry. For a while the workload at school was crazy because of final exams… and then I just forgot. Sorry. I do really like doing this story though, and I swear I'm going to try to be better about updating.**

**I actually already started to write the next chapter because I just kept going on this one before I remembered that I wanted to stop this one here.**

**One thing though, is that this is the longest chapter I have ever written for any story, so just as warning, I wouldn't expect the rest of them to be this long. They could be, but just know that it's not my norm.**

**I don't know if many people are reading this anyway, but I hope you are because I need you all to review and give me constructive criticism so that I can work on my writing skills. I know they're not great, and I would like to improve them. Please don't flame though.**

**I'll try to update within a month.**

**REVIEW responses:**

Rane2920072: You were my first reviewer again! Yay. I promise: Harry will definitely come back in the end. I am a firm believer in happy endings.

Moony'sMate: Thank you! Sorry I took so long…

Cookiedoughicecream: There will definitely be much fluff later. (p.s. I like your pen name)

DSMelody: Thanks so much for reviewing! I'm glad you didn't find it too dark.

Baby-Fire-666: um… sorry?

BlackFairy76: Thanks for the review… and yes, you guessed right.

Raspberri13: Since this is a fanfiction, it isn't always going to follow exactly what the books say. I'm trying to stick by them as much as I can, but I'm going to have to change some things to fit my plotline better. I really want to thank you for your review though, it is actually the one that made me remember that I should be working on this—so thanks!

.o.

.o.


End file.
